


Gotta Have Faith

by AraniaArt, Kamiki



Series: Falling's Just Another Way to Fly [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Demons, Family, Family Drama, Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovery, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 07:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13899204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraniaArt/pseuds/AraniaArt, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamiki/pseuds/Kamiki
Summary: This is canon for the Falling’s Just Another Way to Fly series: this insert fic takes place between chapters 7 and 8 of “Lifting You Up” – a side glimpse how Sam is dealing with the return home to New York City, reconnecting with family, and challenges to his beliefs.





	Gotta Have Faith

**Author's Note:**

> This MAY turn into a multi-chaptered work with more side-perspective outside of the Bucky & Steve POV that Lifting You Up will stick with, but for now I’m listing it as a completed work.

Sam Wilson was not the sort of person to believe in signs.  That sort of superstitious mumbo jumbo had gotten more good men into serious shit both back in the neighborhood as well as in Afghanistan.  Sam was still irritated with his fellow PJ Miller when he feigned food poisoning after a damn bird got trapped in the barracks and died, and that was four years ago.  (The run he had been scheduled to go on went just fine, thank you very much).  So, coincidences be damned of winding up getting an apartment back in New York a week after seeing a – well, Sam wasn’t sure what it was, but he wasn’t ready to call it a demon.  Not in the literal fiery pits of hell sense, at least.  Because if _that_ shit were real, Sam _really_ wasn’t ready to re-open _that_ can of worms.  

Guilt and family obligation?  Those things, on the other hand, were as real as gravity.  

So here he was, standing in front of the First Corinthian Baptist Church, which had barely changed in the twenty years since Sam had last seen it.  How in the hell had he let this much time pass?

Sure, he and Deon hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms, but saying it had been a trying time for their family would be putting it lightly.  But for as much as Sam would have liked to blame the estrangement on his brother, it wasn’t like Deon hadn’t reached out… more than once.  Deon had even come to visit him after he finished his last tour, but Sam had been short with him when he had started spouting religious platitudes that Sam had not been in the mood to hear.  

The ball had been left in Sam’s court, and he’d let it lay there for long enough that this was going to be an uncomfortable visit.  No reason to draw it out any longer than he had to by standing on the front steps like a damn tourist.  

The last Worship Service for the day had let out around half an hour ago, but Sam could still hear the echoing of joyful choir singing in his ears as he walked up the empty aisle of the sanctuary.  While the outside had barely changed, Sam couldn’t help but notice the upgrades inside: a large projector screen hung behind the pulpit, and the old pews had been replaced with auditorium-style seating with plush chairs throughout the nave.   The gold-on-white marble columns and façade of the mezzanine, however, hadn’t changed since he was a kid and the lingering fragrance of candles and perfumes from the congregation combined to form a cocktail that made him feel fifteen again with an urge to dig out a snuck-in paperback book from a coat pocket.

“Sam!” A clear voice pulled him out of his nostalgia, “What a pleasure it is to see you here!  I had wondered if you’d make your way up here!”  Deon strode towards him, dressed immaculately in a prim black suit and tie with a deep royal button-up shirt, well-fitted to his stockier frame.  Sam had to school his face not to flinch at the mustache that left him almost the spitting image of their late father.  

Instead, Sam summoned his best grin and stepped forward to meet Deon with a firm handshake.  “Deon!  Couldn’t move back to New York and not at least pay you a visit!”

“It’s Gideon now, or Reverend Gideon if you’re feeling charitable.” He responded with a teasing grin of his own.  “Why don’t you come on back to my office?  I’m sure you’d be more comfortable talking there.”

Sam followed Deon to a small office with a desk, a few chairs, and a few select bible verses written across landscape photographs hanging on the walls.  One of them, Sam swore, had been there since the office had been used by their father.  

“I had thought you might turn up here after what went down in D.C.”  Deon said as he took a seat behind the old desk.  

“You heard about that?” Sam flinched.  

His brother leveled a flat look at him.  “You _do_ realize that you were all over the news, right Sam?  You can’t tell your sister or me what you were doing overseas, but suddenly you’re thousands of feet above our nation’s capital in a jet pack?  I can understand you not reaching out to me, but you should have at least given her a call.”

Sam blew out a breath.  “Yeah, I’ve been dodging all kinds of calls and texts already.  I’ll be lucky if I don’t wind up court-martialed over this.”  But hell if it wasn’t worth it – not _just_ playing his part and doing what he could to save the damn world, but to fly again – even if it was only for a day.  The fact the last EXO-7 pack had been destroyed in the fight had rubbed salt into a wound that had never quite healed after he had left the program.  He’d gotten his wings back, only to lose them all over again.  

Deon shook his head, bemused. “I have faith in you, brother.”

Sam crossed his arms with a shake of his head.  “Yeah, I got faith in me too, but that faith ain’t so strong in the government to think that it won’t turn this into a shit-show, pardon the language, and look for anyone and everything to catch some blame for this.”   In an afterthought, he dipped his head to the side with a smirk.  “Course, I’ve got Captain America on my side now.”  Okay, so he couldn’t help but brag a little bit.  

“We heard about that, too.”  Deon’s eyes sparkled.  “You know one of the news outlets called you his guardian angel?”  Deon withdrew a print-out from a desk drawer.  “I was planning on having this framed, you know.”  A grainy image depicted his midair fight with the Winter Soldier beneath the clickbait headline ‘CAPTAIN AMERICA’S GUARDIAN ANGEL DOES BATTLE WITH DEMON ABOVE D.C.’

Sam rolled his eyes with a groan, “Oh come on.”

Deon held up a finger before Sam could elaborate, “You know, what happened last week in D.C. brought more new faces into the congregation than when aliens invaded New York?”  
  
Sam’s jaw clenched, his eyes dropping back down to the indistinct photo.  Quality-wise, it was about on par with those phony bigfoot photos, but Sam had seen the Soldier firsthand on two separate occasions.  He knew what he looked like, and Sam still didn’t know how to even begin to reconcile what he’d seen.   “Always gullible people looking for easy outs.”  Sam muttered before he thought better of it.  

Deon sat back in his chair, lacing his fingers.  The slight tick in his jaw was all the tell Sam needed to know that his brother was swallowing down what he really wanted to say.  “You were there.  You can’t tell me that you don’t have questions.”  

“Of course I’ve got questions – a lot of them.  But that doesn’t mean that I think that the answers are here!”  Sam wasn’t sure where the words were coming from: the present or twenty years ago. 

“Then why _are_ you here, Sam?” Deon asked point-blank, hands spread.  

Sam was starting to wonder that himself.  Why _had_ he come here?  Other than the fact he’d been putting off this conversation for long enough that it had become another piece of baggage.  And yeah, all right, so maybe that _was_ the real answer.  “Can’t a guy just want to see his brother after a near-death experience?”

This time, Deon’s smile didn’t go all the way to his eyes.  “Dad wanted you to have faith in something, even if it wasn’t in Christ.  That’s why he gave you all those books on other religions and theology when you didn’t want to join the church.  But it didn’t even have to be religion.  You found it in the Air Force for a time, I think, but you seemed to have lost it by the time you came home.”  
  
“What dad wanted doesn’t matter.” Sam snapped.  “He died a long time ago.”

“You’re still angry with him.”  Deon’s eyes softened.  

“No.”  Sam said too quickly.  “Maybe.”  Sam swallowed and pushed further, “I just don’t see how you can follow in his footsteps and believe in a God that took Dad when he was doing so much good for the community.”  

Deon tapped his finger on a well-worn corner of the desk, “His passing hit all of us pretty hard, Sam, especially for how sudden it was.  But I believe that even if God welcomed him home sooner than we would have liked, that doesn’t mean that he didn’t leave an impression that is still being felt today.  Yes, he may have died young, but the ripples-”

“Don’t give me that butterfly effect bullshit,” Sam cut him off.  This is exactly why Sam hadn’t been able to tolerate Deon so soon after losing Riley and his confidence in the work he was doing overseas.  

“No, hear me out,” Deon insisted.  “Every day I speak to people whose lives Dad touched, and not just members of the congregation.  One of the kids that dad was trying to get through to on the night of the shooting is going to seminary school.  Another one is running a homeless shelter down on 143rd.  And like it or not, following in Dad’s footsteps – as you put it – has helped me do so much for this community as well.  Dad is still having an influence on our lives.”

“So you’re trying to tell me that it was God’s plan for Dad to be killed that night?  That it was a good thing for the community that it happened?” Sam knew it was a low blow the moment he’d said it, but this thorn had been wedged in his side for years.   
  
“Of course not, Sam – I mourned him just as much as you did.  What I’m trying to say is that you will never see all the ripples of how your actions influence the world.  The good dad put out there is still reverberating through this community; what he did was never a waste of his efforts.  You have to believe – if not in God, then in _something.”_ Deon reached across the deck to squeeze Sam’s shoulder. _“_ You have to ensure that the cause you’re fighting for is a good one, so that the affects you have on others’ lives are positive.”  

Sam’s mouth tightened at the corners and he caught himself nodding.  “I’m doing what I can, Deon.  That’s all anyone can do.”  He sure as hell hoped he was doing the right thing.  Following Steve Rogers to New York was a pretty damn drastic step, especially when even Steve was still grasping at straws for how to proceed next and didn’t even technically have a job any more.  

Deon echoed his somber smile.  “Well, it looks to me like you are on a new path, and I think it suits you, Sam.  Sarah kept me in the loop about how you’d been doing in D.C., and while I think you were doing good work out there, she wasn’t sure if you were settled.” 

Sam shrugged with snort, “Sounds like little Sarah’s still a damn tattle tale.”

Deon got back to his feet and browsed through the bookcase lining the walls before selecting a hardbound volume.“And here,” he handed him a book titled _Powers of Evil: A Biblical Study of Satan & Demons.  _“For the questions you have that you were so certain that the answers weren’t found in these walls.  Just in case.”  
  
“Right.  Thanks.  I’ll keep it in mind.”  Sam said diplomatically.  He stood up to take the book, and the exchange quickly turned into a firm hug.  

“Hey Sam?” Deon held him still for a moment, “Welcome home.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to SuperHeroResin for some brainstoming discussion about some storyline for Sam in this universe, and keying me into some comic-canon backstory for Sam to integrate!


End file.
